Seeing beyond is the takeaway of our times.
Celebrations under Coronavirus are markedly different, like everything. Stripped to its bare meaning, we’re offered a strawberry reduction sauce, not just a strawberry – simmered until it’s a fraction of itself and yet oh so sweet – even better.
Day 8 of our CV trail brought the guys’ 26th birthday. The family traditions continued – a birthday sign, special breakfast (cornmeal waffles), cake and restaurant meal for which they poked at their AAC software to make a choice for hours – of course, each one wanting something different. Would it be both Outback Steakhouse AND Chinese food? Or could we ask enough time that someone traded camps?
I bought balloons, two bunches of three each, which was reduced to one when I opened the car door and a bunch joined the blueness of the sky the other day. I was lucky to get them at all. The party store cautioned I’d better buy them in advance, as they doubted they’d be open much longer under non-essential business closures.
Jeff rocked the bday, loving hats and so preciously delighted by small things. He beamed from the soul over the small thing. Chipotle wraps for lunch. His balloons whose strings tripped him as the walked through the kitchen and made hims giggle. Birthday songs.
Will unfortunately showed more wear and tear of recent times, and I struggled to find his smile. Not a fan of hats, I bought him a garland of silly bead necklaces, which he sort of tolerated. I think he was living for the food treats. Aren’t we all?
The day’s real gift arrived at 5 pm, when their sister Jenn and boyfriend drove the 90 minutes from her home to make sure the boys were honored. Waving at each other across a closed back sliding door, they hoisted brightly-bagged presents to be left for us to get later, which of course were perfect, and shouted well-wishes through the glass. We lit the candles and sang Happy Birthday across a door, pulling out the fat numeral 2 and 6 candles so the boys each could blow them out several feet away from the cake.
Will has always loved everything about his sister – her room (perhaps because there might have been hidden candy troves), her voice, her caring. He replays videos she’s made for him on his iPad endlessly. We videotaped our birthday song, and he’s played it ad nauseum ever since. As I looked over and saw his smile during one of these, I knew there was a hit of a present given.
Because Paul is unwell, we’re being ultra-rigorous with quarantine tactics, even though he doesn’t have COVID-19 symptoms, and failed the CDC screener several times so we know he’s not at serious issue. I’m the only family member for car trips to stores and restaurants, he wears gloves all day that we washes nightly and sleeps/bathes in his locked room. We didn’t want him any contact at all with Jenn, other than fond waves. But she absolutely needed to savor this birthday.
Before she left I sliced sloppy triangles of cake, wrapped them and ran out the basement door and perched the cake atop her car roof. She and the BF emerged from our porch to see it, laughing as freshly fallen snow lay like powdered sugar. My own best gift was that they lingered, a safe 6-foot distance, with under the garage door jamb and the poor BF in the driveway practically soaked by fresh fluffy snow. Its whiteness gave him a laughable fuzzy cap on his black hair. They must have been freezing, yet I selfishly didn’t want to let her go.
It wasn’t the birthday I wanted for the boys. The mounting snow on the roads made it impractical to buy a Bloomin’ Onion as well as Lo Mein, so Will had to defer his choice til tomorrow. None of our favorite local Chinese places were open so we had to go to the marginal one. The cake was from the supermarket, not our favorite bakery. I swear my waistband was tighter. I hadn’t had time to load Jeff’s gift (an iPad) with more apps, and Will got a more meager set from me since the stores for what I wanted for him have been closed.
No, it wasn’t the birthday I wanted. And yet it was abundant beyond measure.